Learning Why We Have the Number
by 13girlsrule
Summary: Life is full of mysteries, this is just an other example. this can be read by itself or read as an accompaniment to All Thanks to Math. if you read it with ATtM, it would be how I felt when I got the number. But My feelings in this one shot and the ones in ATtM are different about my parents.


Learning Why We Have the Number

We've had them for a while now, the mysterious numbers on our arms. No one bothered to explain why we got them. They just called saying we were needed. I remember everything that happened a week ago, when we got out numbers.

The day we got them started like any other. I had woken up at 6am and got ready for the day; brushed my teeth, changed and made lunch for my brother KevIn, dad and myself. Then, as if a switch turned on, my brother and parents woke up all at the same time. It was a bit odd, but I brushed it off and just made some pancakes for breakfast. Right after we finished eating, the phone rang. My dad answered it; by the time he hung up he was an ashen white colour.

"What's wrong Dad?" I asked, concern starting to leak into my voice.

"We have to go to Toronto for something. I'm not sure what, but I was told it is very importaint," said my Dad, after he had regained his voice again.

After that, I shoved a couple of books in my bag for me and Kev. We got in the car, Mom still interigating Dad about the call. I wasn't sure why she kept doing it. It was obvious what he told us was all he knew.

We had been in the car for about two hours by the time we got there, thanks to the many loo breaks my brother needed. Even with all the times we had been to Toronto, I still couldn't beleave all the huge buildings that towered over us, gleaming in the afternoon sunlight and all the hussle bussle on the city with all the niose.

While Kevin and I were gawking at out saroundings, Dad had driven us to a building I wasn't familiar with. It was a large gray silvery structures that, though it wasn't really that big, seemed to loom over you with an omonouse air around it.

My brother and Mom didn't seem to mind it but my Dad and I knew nothing good could come from this place. When we got inside we were all seperated and ushured into seperate rooms.

I took one look at the people that were around me, seeming to prepare me for an opperation, and had a feelIng that I would have to be very weary of them. One of them told me that they were ready for me. When I had heard that all I could thInk was, "_Why does everyone have to be to vague?"_

They walked me into a large hall with a gigantic mecanisome in it. The machine was as big as my bedroom with needles protruding from mecanical arms that were everywhere. Taking one look at the monstrouse, black machine and knew that whatever I had to do, had to do with that thing and that it wouldn't be pleasent.

All of a sudden they were trying to strap me into the chair. At first I was going to go willingly but then I heard a scream that seemed to freeze my blood and body on the spot. I would know that voice and scream anywhere, mind you, I had only heard it two other times; it was the sound of my baby brother in a pain that only we understood. Knowing he was being hurt beond the comprehention of most other people, I started to struggle violently, It wasn't until I heard that the screaming had stopped and that they had given him some medicine to help with the pain that I started to co-opperate again. That scream had shaken me to the core, I heard mom and dad scream their heads off as they were in there and, yes, it scared me, but it didn't hit a soft vulnerable spot in my heart like my brother's did.

When they had me strapped into one of the opperation chairs, they went to prepart somethings for after, incase I needed it like Kev had, along with some paper work. So I sat there, to brew in my own anxiety of the pain that I was sure the needles of the machIne would ensue and the guilt of not being there for my one and only brother.

They had just started the black, needled monster, that was as silent as a wisper of wind, getting closer to the chair and, therefore, closer to my arm. As it peiarced my skin and ingrainged an eboney coloured number into my arm, it felt like an poison that struck the nervse, burning everythIng it touched and it was all I could do not to scream like a mad woman. The needle repeatedly struck skin and it was excrutiating, but I continued to hold in my scream; it wasn't like screaming would help anything, it would only- make everyone else worried about why I would be screaming.

When we all had our numbers permenently engraved into our arms, we were told that we could leave and go home. In the car, Mom and Dad both asked Kev and I if we were okay. They told us that they had heard Kevin scream but when I went in last they heard nothing and was worried why no noise had come out of the hall. I asured them that I was fine, but they were still bothering me about it; saying it wasn't right, even they had screamed. I told them that I heard and they both stiffened.

When I saw that, I knew that they did not feel comfortable with us, or even me knowing. The ride home that day was uncomfortable. I didn't know what was going on in there heads, all I knew was that this was one mystery I would figure out. From then 'till now I still am trying to figure it out. I have a feeling this will be one heck of a story to tell one day.


End file.
